Obama gives deficit panel wide mandate

Wednesday

Apr 28, 2010 at 12:01 AMApr 28, 2010 at 11:42 AM

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said yesterday that every politically painful choice must be considered - including spending cuts, tax increases, even changing the new health-care law - as he launched what he hopes will be a bipartisan effort to reduce the government's soaring budget deficits.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama said yesterday that every politically painful choice must be considered - including spending cuts, tax increases, even changing the new health-care law - as he launched what he hopes will be a bipartisan effort to reduce the government's soaring budget deficits.

"Everything has to be on the table," Obama said after meeting with the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform at its first session.

Underscoring his commitment, Obama agreed in private with a Republican demand that the health-care law be open to possible changes, said commission co-Chairman Alan Simpson, a former Republican senator from Wyoming.

Several Republican commission members asked during its session whether the president's words meant they could revisit the recently enacted health-care law, spurring Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to react.

"This really shouldn't be a forum for revisiting the greatest hits of the latest health-care-reform debate," Durbin said. "Parts of the decisions made there have to be reconsidered here, I'm sure, but I think we need to get beyond that."

Panel members' opening remarks suggested that spending cuts or tax increases might be ruled out before the commission's Dec. 1 deadline. It can make only recommendations to Congress that at least 14 of its 18 members support.

Although many members affirmed that all options must be considered, some Democrats signaled that they would resist spending cuts for programs such as education and health, and some Republicans warned that they would find it difficult to endorse tax increases.

Countered Sen. Michael Crapo, R-Idaho: "Our country is spending far in excess of our capacity and a significant portion of the solution will be found on the spending side of the ledger."

One area of possible agreement: Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., suggested that the panel first try to cut waste and fraud in spending and to collect more in taxes already owed. He said the Internal Revenue Service had estimated that it failed to collect $345 billion a year, either because people reported too little income or took too many deductions.

"If we can put a man on the moon, if we can think about landing an astronaut on Mars, we can collect more of the taxes owed," he said. "We should not cut one dime of federal benefits or raise one dime of federal taxes until we have done everything we can to collect the taxes that are already owed."